The Black Tuesday Affair
by ardavenport-tlneill
Summary: Illya and Napoleon are assigned to guard a Thrush before he is given a new identity for giving UNCLE information and the two agents run afoul of his former comrades.
1. Chapter 1

**THE BLACK TUESDAY AFFAIR**

by ardavenport and tlneill

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( Act 1 : "My partner's started a fashion craze."**

* * *

Napoleon looked down at his feet. He lifted his head, and squared his shoulders. It had been years... Feeling insecure was perfectly natural, but he didn't have to let it show. His partner glided effortlessly past; Solo imagined a smug smile on the Russian's face and took a step, then hurriedly grabbed the rail. Falling was far worse than admitting that he was a bit rusty. After a few more steps he felt almost steady and let go. Illya sailed by again and this time Napoleon saw the smile. His ankle turned unexpectedly and he clutched the rail again. He fixed his eyes and a charming smile on the blue mini skirt and attractively snug yellow sweater of U.N.C.L.E. receptionist Beverly Torays. A mere twenty paces away, she returned his smile sympathetically. Napoleon pressed on.

He was beginning to feel steady enough to continue on his own. After another half-circuit he was able to make the skating look more natural. As soon as he felt secure he enticed Beverly into a leisurely 'stroll' about the rink.

Illya was skating backwards. He did a quick turn and stopped, his skates digging deeply into the ice. The women watched him appreciatively. They all were experienced skaters, but the power of the demonstration was still impressive. Illya acknowledged his audience with a brief nod and continued on.

_How are you going to catch anything, if they can't catch you, old boy?_, Napoleon wondered while he chatted with Beverly.

A half hour later they were beneath the ice.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Drew Jorgenson straightened his blue turtleneck sweater as he sat down at the large circular table in his office. Napoleon smiled privately to himself.

_My partner's started a fashion craze._

Ordinarily, suits and ties were the standard of dress for male U.N.C.L.E. agents, but Portland HQ's cool location made that impractical. Huge refrigeration units rumbled overhead, maintaining the ice rink above. The two New York agents had been to U.N.C.L.E. Portland a couple of times before. The last time Illya had worn his black turtleneck sweater on a clandestine outing and apparently the locals had liked the look. Now, at least half of the agents and their chief had replaced their shirts and ties with the ubiquitous turtleneck.

"I'm sorry about the delay, gentlemen. I hope you've had a pleasant afternoon."

"You have a unique exercise program for your agents," Illya replied, deadpan.

"I've never thought of it as an 'exercise program', but I suppose ice skating isn't standard at all our offices. I find it very relaxing, though." He opened a folder on the table and spun its top to the two agents at the other side. "I trust you were briefed about our arrangements in New York?"

"We'll be transporting Elias Ritzen alias Frank Berman to his son's wedding reception tomorrow in Eugene, after which he will disappear from his former life forever via the U.N.C.L.E. Informant Protection Program," Napoleon answered.

Solo and Kuryakin only glanced at the contents of the file. They'd seen it all before in New York. Ritzen had at one time lived the American Dream with his wife and child and status quo home. It was only when his wife had discovered that their middle-class income came from a long association with Thrush that his life came apart. Without warning she left him, taking their teenage son with her and leaving vital clues about Ritzen's connections with Thrush behind with the local authorities.

The information eventually found its way to U.N.C.L.E. and months later it developed into a case that Kuryakin and Solo were assigned to. Surprisingly, they discovered that Ritzen had not tried to find his spouse. Knowing that Thrush involvement might lead to his family's termination, as well as his own, he'd covered the whole affair up with tales of woe and marital strife and childhood illnesses and long visits to the in-laws. Ritzen had willingly aided the U.N.C.L.E. agents in exchange for escape from his imaginary domestic misery.

Now he was a participant in U.N.C.L.E.'s Informant Protection Program. He was scheduled to disappear for parts unknown, but before going he'd demanded one last meeting with his wife and son. Against his better judgement, Alexander Waverly had approved the request; Ritzen would not cooperate until he'd seen his family. So, after U.N.C.L.E. investigators had located the missing family, Illya and Napoleon were once again assigned to work with Elias Ritzen.

"Ritzen, or rather Berman, specifically wanted you two protecting him. He places a great deal of confidence in your abilities," Jorgenson told them with a note of appreciation in his voice.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Napoleon watched the skaters while he cut his steak. He and Illya had a rink-side table at Mannings restaurant. He took a bite and frowned. The Russian was less picky. He solemnly devoured his meal without comment. Napoleon took another nibble. The meal wasn't up to the standards of his New York palate, but it was edible. Sort of. Beverly had disappointed him by being busy that evening, so he was stuck with his partner's company.

"Well, it's nice to be up where it's warm again," he said conversationally after another bite.

"There's no reason for it to be that cold down there, those refrigeration units produce enough heat to keep it as warm as they like all the time." Illya chomped down a couple fries.

"Pardon me? I thought refrigeration was designed to keep things cold."

"The ice is what's being kept cold, Napoleon. A refrigerator is essentially a heat pump that keeps things cold by pumping the heat somewhere else. They could use some of that heat down there." He pointed down with his fork.

Napoleon had to admit his thermodynamics was a little rusty. "Why don't you ask them?"

"Hmmmm," Illya grunted and stabbed his meal with his fork. Solo smiled and scanned the tables around them.

A fat man in work clothes ate a bowl of chili by himself. Two teenagers wolfed down hamburgers and sodas. A woman with a herd of six children finished her sandwich and instructed her progeny to do the same. A couple of them clamored for desert. The motion was denied. The others joined in, but the mother held firm.

"When _can_ we have desert?" one of them asked.

"1975." It was apparently her stock answer to demands that were not going to be met.

The environment of this new shopping mall was friendly but somehow impersonal. People came to a common place to buy things they may or may not need, but they were all strangers, wandering about in a modern shopping arena to the strains of pre-recorded nondescript instrumental pop music. It had all the appeal of a dentist's waiting room to Napoleon. He hoped that this shopping mall idea would die off with other crazes like hula hoops and skateboards.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( END Act 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**THE BLACK TUESDAY AFFAIR**

by ardavenport and tlneill

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( Act 2 : "Why autopsy tables?"**

* * *

Jonathan Joseph McKenzie, Section Two number fifty-six out of the Seattle U.N.C.L.E. office, drove a dark green nondescript four-door sedan south on Interstate Five. His partner, Ben Edgars, twiddled the dial on a brief case-sized electronic tracking unit.

"They're slowing down," Ben announced. "They're about ten miles ahead and to the west and we're catching up to them."

J.J. glanced at the map taped to the dashboard. "They must be stopping in Medford. I thought trains ran straight through, like trucks," he complained. "These guys stopped in Olympia, Portland, Eugene and now Medford."

"Nah," Ben said. "Some trains stop in lots of places, picking up additional cars and dropping some off. Besides, it's not like they're in any kind of hurry. Thrush kept all that equipment waiting in Seattle for ten weeks. They may even have chosen to hook onto a train with a lot of stops. Theory is that they're building this new center for one of their crack interrogation geniuses from Europe, Raymond Koski, and were waiting for him to arrive. We find where they set up their interrogation center, we find this Koski guy. That's why Dr. Stanton, from the New York office, is heading this affair. She's a psychologist and supposedly U.N.C.L.E.'s top expert on Koski."

"If this train is going to stop at every station from here to L.A. aren't we lucky we've got a homing device stuck to one of their boxcars?. An _undetectable_ homing device. Where do you think they're headed" Ben had seven years more experience than J.J., who had graduated from Survival Island only two years ago. The older agent was pretty good at figuring such things out.

"I don't know. Where would you set up three boxcars full of interrogation equipment?"

"Someplace quiet-out of the way." J.J. thought for a moment. "Or someplace very noisy, where no one would notice the screams." He shuddered. "I don't like the idea of this at all."

"The invoices we managed to copy show there's enough soundproofing to silence your average rock concert." Ben pointed out. "I think they'd set it up in the middle of someplace where comings and goings wouldn't be as noticeable. Maybe a hospital or pathology laboratory. They bought a lot of medical equipment, too."

"I know. Lots of drugs, two electroshock machines, restraining straps, ceiling tile, electrical wire, light bulbs, high intensity lamps, three tape recorders, scalpels and other surgical equipment, two autopsy tables - -"

"You can stop now."

" - - a sofa, dining room table, television, stove, cookware and four-poster canopy bed, among other things. With floral sheets. Why furniture?"

"Maybe it's cheaper in Seattle. How should I know? Maybe I'm wrong and they're going to build their interrogation center in the middle of nowhere—where furniture stores are scarce."

"Why autopsy tables?"

"To strap you down to. According to Dr. Stanton, Koski, prefers autopsy tables because they conduct electricity well, are easy to clean and have drains along the sides for body fluids."

"Yuck. When did she tell you that?"

"Over lunch the day the autopsy table invoice came in."

"Double yuck."

Ben had to agree.

Ben and J.J. had been following the train from Seattle, and would continue to follow until it came to rest wherever it was that Thrush intended to build its newest North American interrogation facility.

They located the train stopped on a siding in the Medford, Oregon switching yard. J.J. drove by the train yard to confirm that, then found a place where they could get take-out dinners to eat in the car.

The train stayed put all through dinner. J.J. had parked out of the way, where they had a view of the three green and orange Florida Pacific boxcars they were following. By dusk, the activity of coupling and uncoupling cars to the train had ceased. Ben climbed out of the car for a last walk around before continuing on south.

J.J. heard a muffled 'pftht' and Ben's shout. He dropped flat on the front seat, drew his gun and slithered out of the car and onto the ground.

"Ben?"

"North! They're to you're right!" came the reply.

'Pftht.' 'Pftht.' Silenced pistols sounded to J.J.'s right. He scrambled around and crouched next to the front bumper of the car.

'Pftht.'

This time he saw the muzzle flash and fired in response.

'Pftht'

Something hit the trunk of the car. Not a bullet. Thrush was using sleep darts. He left the meager shelter of the car and headed zig-zag south and west towards the train yard and Ben, pistols 'pftht'-ing behind him.

"'Undetectable tracer'!" he said bitterly as he ran.

The sound of Ben firing his U.N.C.L.E. Special urged J.J. on. It sounded like his partner was in more trouble than he. J.J. fired to keep heads down as he ran toward his partner, then ducked behind a pile of railroad ties as several darts whizzed past him. Ben's pistol answered.

Shouts could be heard from the main switching area. J.J. fired at a figure approaching where Ben was concealed.

Sirens began to wail in the distance, coming closer to the fire fight. JJ snapped off another shot at the guy trying to blind side his partner.

"Break off! Break off!" one of the Thrush commanded.

'Pftht.'

J.J. whirled at the sound. He felt a thud and a stab in his arm. A sleep dart. He plucked it out and tried to fire back; but slumped to the ground behind the stack of railroad ties. He had a brief confusing impression of thunder, and shaking-an explosion . . . ?

Then floating darkness.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Elias Ritzen, or rather Frank Berman, squirmed in the back seat. Illya noticed the movement in the rear view mirror and sighed inwardly. He knew what Berman was going to ask before he even opened his mouth.

"Could we stop somewhere, for a little break?"

"Not another, one. We're almost there, can't you hold it for a little while?" Napoleon kept his eyes on the road. Berman had to have the weakest bladder in Thrush. This would make their third stop on their two hour trip down to Eugene.

"I guess I shouldn't have drunk all that coffee at breakfast. I'm just nervous." Berman shrugged and ran a hand over his thinning, brown hair. "I just haven't talked to Gilda - -"

' - - in years.' Illya thought while Berman talked. Berman had been saying pretty much the same thing all morning.

"And Simon, getting married. The kid's only nineteen. What does he think he's doing getting married while he's still in college!" Berman worried.

Inwardly Napoleon agreed that nineteen was a little young to be getting married but outwardly he wished Berman would stop fretting about it to them. 'Plucked Thrush' were the words used by the Portland agents to describe their charge, and the term fit. Although not completely spineless, Berman had been putty in the hands of U.N.C.L.E. when he was first confronted and coerced into giving information. Now he was sweating bullets about the impending reunion with his family.

"We could turn back now, Berman," he suggested. "Avoid risking the lives of your wife and son by focusing Thrush's attention on them."

"No," Berman snapped and straighten in his seat. "They've known where my family was for months and if they were going to kill them, they would have done it a long time ago. I'm the one they want."

Surprised, Illya looked up from his road map and back at their passenger. "How do you know that?"

"Ask your Mr. Waverly," Berman answered, surly. Solo and Kuryakin, of course knew that Thrush was aware of Berman's family and that they could be walking into a potentially dangerous trap, but they didn't know that the U.N.C.L.E. chief had told Berman.

_Was Waverly getting soft in his old age or did he use that information to try and frighten Berman off of seeing his family_, Napoleon wondered.

"Are we going to stop?" Berman demanded.

Illya consulted his map again. "We're almost to Albany, we'll stop there." They rode in silence for a couple more minutes.

Sniff.

Sniff, sniff.

"This is Albany, _Oregon_, isn't it?" Napoleon asked.

"I believe Albany has a paper mill in town, as well as a substantial chemical plant," Illya told him.

"Lovely." Solo turned off at the next exit and looked for a gas station. It seemed appropriate that this Albany would have an industrial aroma that seemed to surpass that of its namesake, Albany, New York. If they were lucky, this place would at least convince Berman that they didn't need any more stops until they finally got to Eugene.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Solo passed neatly trimmed lawns and rose gardens and pulled up to the Laurelwood Country Club. The reception was already in progress, forcing him to park further away from the door than he would have liked. They disembarked and strolled up the gravel walkway toward the entrance. Illya and Napoleon noted Worwick and Chan from the Portland office. They were dressed as golfers and had positioned themselves so that the parking lot was covered.

The three entered and paused at the door while the two agents allowed their eyes to adjust from the bright sunshine outside. A cloakroom was to their right, a podium with the guest book on it to the left. Straight ahead through a set of open double doors they could see people mingling at the reception. An agent named Callings nodded toward a door next to the cloakroom. He opened it for them and then resumed his post.

The trio followed a dingy corridor, obviously meant for only the staff to see-Napoleon, then Berman, with Illya at the rear. They passed through a noisy, steamy kitchen, past a counter loaded with huge trays of hors d'ourves-small, crustless cucumber sandwiches with cream cheese, chicken liver pate' on decorative crackers, cookies, tiny chocolate eclairs with real whipped cream, vegetable platters with kosher dill pickles. Illya's stomach growled. Fortunately the echoing clattering of the staff covered it up. A man in white glanced their way but otherwise appeared to ignore them and continued to carve a round pungent cheese. But as soon as they were gone he put down his slicer and signaled to other kitchen workers who then followed the trio.

The U.N.C.L.E. agents and their charge passed through another set of doors marked 'Employees Only' and then down another hallway past an entryway to the reception and to a small dressing room where Berman's family waited.

"Hello, Gilda," Berman finally said after a considerable pause.

"Eli." Gilda Zlodnik, formerly Ritzen, looked her former husband in the eye. To Solo she seemed a far more elegant and beautiful woman than he expected their Thrush would have as a wife. Her son, a younger, dark haired and more handsome version of Berman stood nervously at her side. The three family members faced each other off silently. Illya and Napoleon did their best to blend into the background.

"You're looking well," Berman started again, taking a step toward them.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

In the reception area the band played a slow 'Moon River'. A few middle aged couples made a go of it on the dance floor. The bride, a slightly over-weight, rosy-cheeked redhead chatted with a crowd of old school friends. Nearby her father and group of employees from his car dealership puffed fat Virginia cigars over the fragrance of the many floral arrangements. The bride's mother was beginning to collect people and photographers in preparation for cutting the six tiered wedding cake.

A man at the door to the patio noticed a suspicious crowd of caterers near the back of the room. After a few moments scrutiny he recognized one of them with alarm. He stepped behind a pink and yellow floral display and quickly pulled a large silver pen from his coat, unscrewed its top, reversed it and pulled up an antenna. As discreetly as possible he began speaking into the device.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

"I don't think we have anything else to say,' Gilda pronounced. Berman hung his head miserably, the reunion had not gone well. He began to back away. Illya moved to the door.

"Papa," Young Simon addressed his father. "Take care of yourself." He looked like he wanted to say more but he only gestured lamely to try to convey feelings that were only half felt about his errant father.

Berman nodded and turned away, equally as inarticulate as his son. Illya opened the door.

Napoleon saw his partner tense. He crouched and pushed Berman to a wall. Illya slammed the door shut and backed away drawing his U.N.C.L.E. Special. A door at the opposite end of the room burst open and three men dashed in.

"Get down!" Napoleon shouted to the mother and son. Mouths open, they backed up to a wall out of the line of fire, but made no other move to take cover. Fortunately for them the attackers seemed to have their eyes only on the three at the door. A dart from a Thrush pistol whizzed past Napoleon's cheek. Solo downed one and fired at the others. They backed up, toppling a table and ducking behind it for cover. The U.N.C.L.E. agents had no cover at all.

Napoleon grabbed one of Berman's arms and propelled him toward the door. Illya opened it and dove out, rolled and almost shot one of the two U.N.C.L.E. agents huddled by a wall. The ambush at the door had already been repelled by the U.N.C.L.E. agents at the reception, but now they were all pinned by the entryway.

Women screamed, glasses dropped, folding chairs crashed. A few brave people ran for the doors, but most of them hid under the tables.

"There's an exit through that dressing room," Agent Tom Jeffers, a beefy man with a blond crewcut, pointed back to where they'd come from.

"That way's covered by Thrush," Solo told them.

"Then we'll have to go around," the other man, Abe Cohen, said. "We've got a car ready in the parking lot." He pointed to his right. "We'll have to go around the refreshment table. The exit's on this side of the wall."

"We'd better go now in case they get they upper hand. We'll take Berman through first," Napoleon told Jeffers. Berman cringed. He may have been a plucked Thrush, but he seemed to know when to shut up, do what he was told and let someone else do the shooting. "Illya, you and Cohen bring up the rear and cover us." Cohen quickly relayed the plan to the other agents through the open communicator he held.

A man with a Thrush rifle – Napoleon wondered how he'd gotten it past their security - paused to reload. Two men hiding behind some band equipment did the same while a third covered them.

"Now!"

The two agents dashed forward and to the left with their man between them. Darts from Illya and the other agents' guns kept the Thrush ducking. Halfway past the refreshment tables, Napoleon saw two agents by the door adding their cover fire to Berman's escape. They were rounding the end table when something shot out in front of them. Jeffers and Berman went down with a clang and the sound of shin bones hitting a metal folding chair. Jeffer's gun flew out of his hand, but he quickly regained his feet dragging his charge with him.

A Thrush in a white chef's hat popped up and aimed. Napoleon pulled the table end up, flipping it and it's contents onto the man, spilling him backwards. Deviled eggs and small sandwiches and then the platters they were on tumbled to the floor. Decorative candles rolled and dribbled hot wax on the carpet. One of the tablecloths caught fire and started smoking. Something grabbed Napoleon's ankle and jerked his legs out from under him. Solo's left elbow and side collided painfully with the folding chair. His U.N.C.L.E. Special still firmly in his right hand, he fired blindly at whatever still was grabbing his legs.

The cloth from the overturned table fell away and for two seconds Napoleon stared at a very surprised young man, a dart stuck out of his cheek, just below his left eye. His grip loosened and he fell backwards, unconscious.

In front of him, Solo saw Jeffers and three other agents surrounding Berman and hustling him out the door. For now Berman was the responsibility of the team in the parking lot. The room echoed with the sound of automatic gunfire. Somebody had decided to use real bullets.

He ducked, turning in time to see Illya diving under the refreshment table. The agent he'd been with was sprawled on the dance floor, a red stain spread across his white shirt, under his tie.

Solo rolled under the table, popped up from behind it and fired. He took cover just before the next hail of bullets. The punch bowl, or rather, its contents exploded up and out, splattering the tablecloth and Illya who was crouched behind it, reloading his Special. The bowl itself, three large holes shattering its crystal facade, spun in the air before hitting the back wall and bouncing to the floor.

Someone screamed. A small man in a plaid sports jacket had taken cover behind the bulk of his rotund wife who was herself shrieking, "Get him, Herman! Get him!" Two agents dragged the couple to safety behind an overturned table.

The floor was nearly cleared of civilians, who had crawled away or been aided by the U.N.C.L.E. agents.

The refreshment table was still no-man's-land. Illya had finished reloading but was pinned down. Shots were picking off the cups of punch that lined the table, one by one. Target practice. They were being toyed with. Suddenly angry, Solo fired back at a line of curtains where he'd seen muzzle flashes. A rain of return fire answered him.

Then the band equipment exploded.

_Grenades?_ Napoleon wondered. _What the hell are they doing?_

Berman was gone. Why weren't the Thrush retreating? He felt a stab in his left arm. He turned and fired but the shot missed. He pulled the dart out, but the damage was done. Already his arm was going numb. He saw Illya on the floor, a dart protruded from his neck. A Thrush crept forward and Solo tried to raise his gun, but it slipped from his fingers. His knees collapsed and he grabbed the table for support and found himself facing the lowest tier of the wedding cake, untouched by the mayhem in the room. He lifted his head, his eyes rolling back involuntarily and the delicate flowers of the pastry perfection blurred, its six white layers towering over him as he slid to the ground.

A sweaty man dragged the unconscious Napoleon from under the table. Another lifted Illya over his shoulders and headed back to the kitchen. Others provided covering fire for an orderly a retreat for the Thrush and their prisoners.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( END Act 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**THE BLACK TUESDAY AFFAIR**

by ardavenport and tlneill

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( Act 3 : "You may take them to the lab, now."**

* * *

Illya could hear voices. He tensed and pain lanced up his arms; his neck ached painfully. Arms bound behind him, he lay on his stomach on a covered but unpadded surface. The blanket was damp under his cheek where he'd drooled on it. He concentrated on what the voices were saying.

"I don't want . . . . . . ere long.

"When . . . . . . . ing here?"

Long pause.

Then, "U.N.C.L.E.'s looking all over town . . . . . . . guys. They don't know . . . . . . . . place, and . . . . . . . . . son for finding it."

Another pause.

Illya dozed, his mind wondering again. A 'bbbzzzzttt' brought him back to the present. Someone moved about in the room.

"Yessir. They'll be waitin' when ya get here. Out"

Illya opened his eyes.

"How long?" a new voice asked.

"We've gotta to hang on to 'em for another three hours. Then we get 'em off our hands."

Two men at a table came into focus. A single lamp illuminated a radio set emblazoned with the Thrush emblem and shadows fell across wooden crates stacked against a concrete wall behind them. Both the men wore cheap, baggy suits. The one leaning against the table spoke next.

" . . . . . . . while those high and mighty Central guys take a rest, we get to take all the risks. They're not even telling us what's so important about these two."

"That's what the orders are. You wantta say no?"

"I'm not crazy. But when I joined Thrush I though I wasn't ever going to have to worry about taking prisoners."

"Well they need 'em for something, and I don't need t'know what for. I like it where I am just fine. And knowin' too much can be hazardous to your health." He turned, his features obscured in the penumbra of the lamp.

"Hey, he's looking at us. Take care of him."

The man standing smiled and strolled toward Kuryakin. He passed a cot when Napoleon lay, apparently unconscious, his hands bound behind him. The Thrush drew a gun and pointed it directly at the Russian's nose. Craning his neck, he could just see down the barrel. He couldn't tell what kind of gun it was in the dim light. Then the man's aim changed and Illya heard and felt a dart strike just below his shoulder.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Illya stirred. Napoleon watched his partner roll his head back and blink his eyes open. Moments ago he had gone through the same process himself.

"Illya," he prompted again.

The Russian shook his head clear and straightened. They were each seated in matching leisure chairs, their arms tied to the wooden armrests with leather straps, their legs equally well fastened to the widely spaced front legs of the chairs, forcing them to sit in an ungentlemanly sprawl.

The color scheme of the room was a tasteful blue and burgandy. A navy sofa matched the chairs they sat in and a rectangular, oak coffee table was a mate for the table between their chairs and the cabinet that the hi-fi set occupied. The floor was plush and pale blue. The air of the room was faintly scented with new carpet and air freshener. The walls were wood paneled and the window curtained, giving no clue as to where they were.

The door at the far end of the room opened. A man entered. He wore a neat pair of gray slacks and a light gray V-neck sweater over a white shirt. Over this he wore a plain white lab coat. He said nothing while he walked over to the bar next to the door and sat down. The two U.N.C.L.E. agents scrutinized him while he poured a glass of ice water. He seemed to be in his early forties, with just a hint of gray to his brown hair. He was really rather average in height, weight and looks and given the surroundings, Napoleon thought that he might look like somebody's father. It even seemed likely that a loving wife in a pretty print dress and 2.4 children would follow him in to watch television.

He sipped his water and sat down on one of the bar stools.

"I hope it won't sound like too much of a cliche if I ask where we are," Napoleon said, breaking the ice.

"You may ask."

"Where are we?"

"Here."

"That doesn't tell me anything."

"No. But that's not what I'm here for, now is it?" The man's accent a generic central European-type.

"That means you're not going to tell us?" Illya joined in.

"I could," he got off the stool and strolled toward them, "but since you're going to find that out anyway, I don't really need to waste the time."

"Ah, hmm, well then, are we going to find out who you are, as well?"

"You don't just ask me 'Who are you?'; you hide behind flip remarks," the man evaluated Napoleon's question without answering it.

"Who are you?" Illya asked dryly.

"You are obviously less circumspect than your partner. You're also not afraid to let your displeasure at being my 'guest' show." Illya continued to glower while his 'host' analyzed him. "Or perhaps you always frown that way."

"I didn't know that Thrush was employing fortune tellers, these days,"

"Is that really how you see me, Mr. Solo?"

"You have the advantage of me." he tested his bonds. "In more ways than one."

The man smiled and turned to a cabinet from which he drew a black dart gun.

_'Oh, no, not again,'_ Illya thought to himself.

"My name is Raymond Koski. You may address me in whatever fashion you feel appropriate."

The name meant nothing to the two U.N.C.L.E. agents, but they were sure it soon would. Koski pointed the dart gun at each of them and fired. When they were slumped in their chairs, he briefly checked each man's pulse and then touched an intercom on the table between them.

"Hill, they're ready. You may take them to the lab, now."

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

The lights above blurred and sharpened. Napoleon winced under the glare and turned his head. Vacant, pale blue eyes stared back at him.

There was another man bound to a table next to him. Koski had said that the man was another U.N.C.L.E. field agent but he was unfamiliar to Napoleon, so presumably he was based on the West Coast. His name was supposedly Ben Edgars.

Moments ago two burly minions in Thrush overalls had hauled Napoleon out of his cell and strapped him to the second cold table in Koski's lab while a third kept him covered with a gun-as if he had the strength to tackle anything more hazardous than an eighty year-old woman. This was the second go for him. Napoleon's vision blurred again. He shook his head, and winced when the movement jostled his headache. He hadn't seen Illya in hours-or was it days? But Edgars had been there before, strapped to the other table.

At the far end of the room Koski and his assistant tidied up their instruments. Or at least that's what it sounded like; metal clinking on glass, drawers being opened and closed, water running. Napoleon's dry throat-he couldn't remember when he'd last had something to drink-seemed to be stuck together.

Napoleon tried his best to scan the room again. It was oddly shaped, long and narrow. Everything in it gleamed in the bright flourescent lights recessed in the ceiling. Steel, chrome, but almost no porcelain or tile. That struck Solo as being odd. This place had all the look of a secret underground Thrush laboratory, but somehow it didn't feel right. He couldn't figure out why.

Solo let his head fall back as another wave of dizziness struck. Footsteps advanced. Koski came into focus above him.

"Ah, I hope you're feeling better?" the man smiled down at him.

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. I have a lot of work to do," he answered, a man clearly pleased with his job. "It will be difficult working all these variations I want to try on only two subjects. Of course," he went on, his eyebrows raised thoughtfully, "I should consider myself fortunate to have this opportunity at all. Originally, I would have only had Ritzen to work on. A worthless traitor. Hardly worth the trouble of breaking, but a necessary task. Examples must be made." Koski's generic European accent suddenly turned sinister. He tied a rubber tube around Solo's upper arm.

"What are you doing to Edgars?" Napoleon stalled, trying to distract Koski from the inevitable.

"Practice, really, that one. Not a very interesting subject, but he has given me such useful information about the physical responses to my formulae. I assure you, everything I give to you has been thoroughly tested on him first."

Solo winced as the needle went in.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

J.J. woke slowly and reluctantly. He blinked a few times, and his surroundings came into focus. A hospital room. He had vague memories of voices, lights being shined into his eyes, needle pricks, but he'd been unable to fight his way to consciousness before. Slowly, he sat up. Head throbbing, he fumbled over the metal bed rail to find the call button for a nurse. It was true what they said about the headache-y after-effects of sleep darts.

Didn't he remember an explosion? Carefully, he checked himself over. Everything seemed to be in working order-no bandages or plaster casts. He ached all over and his head hurt like someone had pounded it with a railroad tie but otherwise he seemed to be intact.

"Good morning, Mr. McKenzie. How are you feeling?" The nurse looked competent he was glad to note. And even better, she was addressing him in the second person. Wonderful! She was also carrying a lot of medical equipment. Her name tag said Linda Jackson, RN.

"I feel fine," he answered. "Like I can get outta here, in fact."

She frowned slightly at that and popped a thermometer into his mouth and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm.

"Ith my sthtuff awoun' here sthomeplath?" JJ mumbled around the thermometer.

Nurse Jackson placed the ends of her stethoscope into her ears and nodded toward the bedside table. "Your personal things are in there. Your clothes are in the closet." She pumped up the cuff. "You'll have to speak with Dr. Lloyd before you can be discharged." She noted his blood pressure on a chart.

"Can I thee him now?"

She smiled slightly and grabbed a wrist. "I'll tell him you're awake as as we're done."

Dr. Lloyd was just as professional. He checked J.J.'s eyes and felt carefully over his skull.

"Well, Mr. McKenzie, I'd like to keep you here another day for observation. You're a very lucky young man, you know."

"Lucky?"

"The police tell me you survived a grenade explosion. Your main injury appears to be concussion."

"How's my partner?"

"Partner?"

"My friend. The one who was with me at the railway station. He must've been hurt, too."

Dr. Lloyd shook his head. "You were the only one brought in."

"But. . . .he was right there with me!"

"Carl Mitchell, our local Chief of Police, wants to talk to you as soon you're able. Why don't you ask him when he gets here?"

After the doctor left, JJ attempted to reach the bedside table for his communicator. Waves of dizziness and nausea and an increased pounding in his head forced him to lie back down.

He was still fighting the need to throw up when Mitchell arrived . The chief appeared to be in his mid-thirties, slender, and blond. He reminded JJ of Dr. Kildare from the television program.

"Medford is generally a quiet town. We take a dim view of people shooting and blowing up our rail yard," began Mitchell without preliminaries. "What can you tell me about it?"

"I. . . we. . . were following the train. . . the freight train from Seattle. Dr. Lloyd said I was the only one brought in. What happened to my partner, Ben Edgars?"

"Your partner," he repeated. "Why don't you tell me about this from the beginning?"

JJ explained that he and his missing partner were U.N.C.L.E. agents on an assignment to locate a suspected new Thrush interrogation site.

"The equipment was loaded onto the train we were following. We were ambushed at the rail yard. They weren't using real bullets-sleep darts. I'm sure Ben must still be alive. Did you search?"

"We didn't know there were two of you, but I assure you that the scene has been thoroughly investigated. We couldn't keep the rail yard closed for two days."

"Two. . ._days?_" JJ shook his head groggily, then regretted the movement.

"You were brought in Saturday night. It's Monday morning. You've been unconscious-or drugged, the doctor suspects-until this morning."

"Monday? But-Ben. The train." JJ struggled to sit up again. "I've gotta call in."

"You do that. Just don't leave the hospital until I've made some calls of my own." He shook JJ's hand and left.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Kuryakin gasped. The world vanished amidst a swirling black nausea and then reformed. He lay there, body and mind paralyzed.

"Hmmm," Koski observed as he touched the electrode to Illya's other nipple. His subject's back arched, chest and limbs pressing hard up against the restraining straps. Koski put the instrument aside and recited the pertinent details into the cassette tape recorder on the instrument tray.

Acid crept up the back of Illya's throat. His body was covered with sweat, the metal table he lay on was cold and clammy under his bare skin. Koski tried his probe in other places; on his neck, behind his ears, under his chin. Illya stared to the side at the at the empty table next to him. Something was missing. He couldn't quite recall, but something was terribly missing. The drugs his tormentor had given him dulled his thoughts, but did nothing for his pain. Somehow that seemed monstrously wrong, but he wasn't sure why.

_The other man. There was another man there? Wasn't there? Was it somebody I knew? Know? Napoleon? It wasn't right that it could have been Napoleon._ He hadn't seen Napoleon in. . . ?

Painful as it was, Kuryakin knew that this was just the warm-up phase. Koski had said something about a minor project of his-acupunture mapping, or maybe it had something to do with electrolysis; the man standing over him seemed to have many interests. The Russian didn't bother asking how it was going. He didn't want to know and Koski had ceased to answer any of his questions anyway. His torturer didn't even acknowledge him when he spoke, though he did carefully record the decibel level of his screams.

"Ahhhh." Illya's back arched when Koski's probe found a nerve cluster at his collar bone. His whole right arm tingled violently, going numb.

Raymond Koski's laboratory was immaculate, perfectly in order. Illya might have admired the man's precision, were it not for his particular specialty. This man Koski was a scientist the same way some of the Nazi doctors had been physicians to the Jews they'd experimented on in the death camps.

Koski hummed to himself as his assistant handed him a new, longer tip for his probe.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( END Act 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**THE BLACK TUESDAY AFFAIR**

by ardavenport and tlneill

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( Act 4 : "How could they lose a train?"**

* * *

"I'm sorry, Mr. MacKenzie, there are no agents available in your area at this time. We have a situation in Eugene." Jorgenson's voice over the communicator from Portland's U.N.C.L.E. office sounded impatient.

"Damn it! My partner's missing. I need some backup!"

"Are you in danger at this time, Agent MacKenzie?"

"Ben is."

"We'll try to get someone down to you as soon as possible. Perhaps I could send you some cash via Western Union?"

"Yeah, right!" JJ slammed his communicator down, then grabbed it again. "Open Channel L. I need to speak to Mr. Compton. _Now_."

He waited with mounting impatience until Gerard Compton, head of U.N.C.L.E. Seattle responded.

"JJ! Where've you been? What's happened? Why haven't you called in? Or answered your communicator? We've lost the tracer signals from those boxcars. Are you still with the train?"

"No! Edgars' car is trashed and my wallet was in it and he had the credit cards with him and Portland says they're 'too busy' with another, more _important_ case to give me any help and. . . ."

"Whoa, whoa, there. Wait a minute. Where are you? Where's Edgars?"

"I'm still in Medford, Sir. I don't know what happened to Ben. We were jumped in the rail yard here and Ben disappeared. It's taken me all morning to get this all straightened out with the local police-my ID was in my wallet-and no one can tell me anything about what happened to Ben. I've tried to get help from Portland or rent another car so I can go look for him myself. But Jorgenson up in Portland says they don't have anybody to spare."

"Alright. Wait again." Compton flipped a switch on his communications console.

"Dr. Stanton? We've finally heard from JJ McKenzie. It looks like he and Edgars lost the train. Yeah, it's kind of what we expected when the tracer on the box cars stopped working Saturday night. Yes, please come up.

He hit another switch. "OK, JJ, start from the beginning." He listened intently while JJ briefly reported what had happened. The agent was still talking when Dr. Stanton strode in a few minutes later.

Stanton, in her early thirties, was the new head of Section Six for the entire North American sector of U.N.C.L.E. Compton knew she was a Cambridge-trained psychologist who specialized in rehabilitating victims of Thrush interrogations and had a particular interest in Raymond Koski's techniques; but until Thrush and Koski had practically moved into his own back yard with this interrogation center business, Compton had never before met her.

"Hang on there for a few minutes, JJ. I'll contact Jorgenson and get this straightened out," he said when JJ finished his report.

Jorgenson was not immediately available. "I don't _care_ if he's having a problem-this case has Mr. Waverly's top priority!" Compton said into the communication microphone.

"How could they lose a train'?" Dr. Stanton demanded, not even bothering sit down before she started questioning Compton. "This was the best lead we've had on Koski in years. He must not be allowed to slip away again."

Jorgenson's voice spoke tinnily from the communications console. "Look, Compton, I've already told your man; we've got a crisis situation down here."

"I'll tell you from crisis. This is a case we've been working on for three months and it has priority over any local case. And now we have an agent missing and presumed captured."

"Well, we have _two_ agents _confirmed_ captured," Jorgenson said.

"What?"

"You heard me. Saturday evening we were doing bodyguard duty on some schmuck in Witness Protection. Thrush comes in and shoots up the place and doesn't even touch the witness. They snatched Solo and Kuryakin while our men were getting the witness away."

"Great. Terrific. Damn it, man, do you know how damaging it would be to U.N.C.L.E. if Thrush got to interrogate those two?"

"Yes, we know. I have every available man, woman, and trick pony working it. I'm sorry to strand your man down here, but I just can't spare anyone to go down to give him a hand."

Compton rubbed his forehead. "All right. I . . . I'll try to get someone from Sacramento on our case. The train we were trailing was probably headed down that way, anyway. What help can we give you on your problem?"

"We don't have a clue where they could've taken Solo and Kuryakin. We've already searched the usual Thrush hideouts. They're all empty. They must've found someplace new. We've pulled in all the local Thrush birdies but none of them know anything except that some out-of-towners were heading the operation. But we think they're still here-we had roadblocks on every road out of town twenty minutes after the snatch."

"I'm glad I wasn't the one to have to tell Alexander Waverly that his two top agents are missing," Compton said.

"Was there any way Thrush could have known ahead of time that Napoleon and Illya would be among the guards for this witness?" Dr. Stanton asked.

Compton passed on the question.

"Well-l-l-l, Ritzen demanded them personally," Jorgensen said.

"It sounds as if they might have been set up," she said. "But why. . . ?"

Suddenly her face froze. "We know Raymond Koski is in the area. What time were they taken?"

"Six thirty. From the country club at the edge of town."

"Oh." Her voice was disappointed. "The train we have been following went through there in the morning. How far is Medford from Eugene?"

"Ummm, about 130 miles," Jorgensen said. "But there is no way Thrush got out of Eugene. There are only 2 main highways out and half a dozen secondary ones. We've searched every car that went out."

"Wait. Did you search every one coming in?"

"Huh? Why would we search cars coming in?"

"You may be right. They may still be right there in Eugene. Mr. Compton," she said, turning to him, excitement growing in her voice, "perhaps those box cars aren't full of equipment going somewhere else. What if Thrush Seattle wasn't waiting ten weeks for Koski to arrive; but he was waiting for them to finish the boxcars? What if they've turned those boxcars into a mobile interrogation center? I think I know where Koski went. Back north. Try the rail yard in Eugene. Look for green and orange Florida Pacific rail cars. There should be three of them hitched together."

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Raymond Koski re-entered his living quarters and went to the bar. After pouring himself a fresh glass of ice water and adding a lemon slice, he activated a button. Wood paneling slid aside to reveal a monitor screen and a keyboard. It was the very latest thing. While most other satraps had to deal with couriers and secure teletypes to communicate to Central with, he could relay his progress directly to them via satellite from wherever his train was located as easily as he might make a long distance phone call.

He took his notebook from his pocket, opened it to the results of his latest experiment and began composing his status report, beginning with his evaluation of Thrush's new mobile interrogation unit.

The equipment was superb. Everything worked flawlessly, with ruthless efficiency. But every silver lining had its cloud. In this case it was the personnel that Koski had been supplied with.

_Where did Thrush get this riff-raff?_ Among them, only Hill was qualified for such delicate work because, of course, Koski had trained him as his personal assistant years ago.

Koski listed the failings of the grunts and minions under his command as precisely as he recorded the responses of his 'clients'. Slow. Inexperienced. Trigger-happy. Functionally illiterate. The glowing text scrolled down his tiny screen.

With a few months of the right kind of training, some of them might possibly be salvageable, but the rest would have to be replaced. Preferably, Koski wrote, with ones who could read.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Illya pondered his buttons. In particular, the extra button sewn on the inside of his trousers. The cell he was in was a perfect neutral gray, long and narrow; it contained a flat, hard slab for a bunk and ultra-modern, minimal toilet facilities. The bunk was just long enough for him to lie flat and the room was so narrow that he could touch the opposite wall while lying on the bunk. The lights above were bright and unrelenting, complimenting his throbbing headache.

He shivered. Shirtless and shoeless, he would have gotten no service at most New York shops. Illya wished that they hadn't taken away his shirt. The shirt with the detonator buttons that went with the explosive buttons on the inside waistband of the trousers he was wearing.

He huddled on the cot. Lying down didn't make him feel any better. He dozed off. After waking up and after he'd felt well enough to sit up, he examined the room. He'd found the crack of the sliding door, and there appeared to be listening devices in the upper corners of the room, but he couldn't reach them. _Stereo_, he thought. There didn't seem to be any television cameras, which surprised him. The laboratory in which he and his partner were imprisoned seemed to be state-of-the-art Thrush, and the lack of visual monitors in the cell was a glaring omission. He wasn't complaining.

_Probably haven't been installed yet._

Everything in Koski's lab was new. No wear on the instruments, no tell-tale bloodstains, no scratches or dents on any of the metal surfaces.

His thoughts once again turned to his missing shirt. His shirt. The shirt Napoleon had borrowed the morning of the wedding because the cleaners had scorched his and there had been no time to get another one. He muzzily tried to concentrate on the thought.

The one with the detonator buttons. The buttons that went with the explosive button on the inside waistband of the trousers that he was wearing. Now his thoughts were spinning in circles.

He lay down on his side and turned over to face the wall with his legs curled up in a semi-fetal position. He added a moan, to make it sound good to the monitors. Under the pretense of clutching his stomach, he grasped the explosive button and began twisting it.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

"What makes you think they're in the rail yard, Dr. Stanton?"

She rubbed her forehead, trying to erase some of the strain before she answered the question. Every hour that passed with the missing agents in the hands of Raymond Koski increased her dread of what U.N.C.L.E. would find if they ever recovered the missing agents. She had personal knowledge of Koski's methods at breaking and interrogating his subjects. It was now already dark. Would they be able to locate Koski in time?

"I have never understood," she explained, "why Thrush would ship all that equipment to Seattle just to store it in those boxcars and then plan to ship it all somewhere else as soon as Raymond Koski arrived from Europe. It seemed so awkward. But it would make sense if they were remodeling the insides of those boxcars to _be_ the interrogation center. If you find Koski's rail cars, I think you will also find Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin and probably Mr. Edgars as well."

"You think so?" Jorgenson sounded skeptical.

Jorgenson from the Portland office had elected to personally lead the search for Koski and the three missing agents. He had brought most of his agents from the small Oregon section and half a dozen more had flown down with Tanja Stanton that afternoon from Seattle. JJ McKenzie had just arrived from Medford.

They all sat or lounged against the walls in the Eugene office of the Union Pacific Railroad while Jorgenson briefed them.

The local railroad authorities had assisted U.N.C.L.E.'s attempts to locate the missing boxcars, but so far no record of them had been found after they passed through Medford. Therefore, dressed as rail inspectors and hobos, they were preparing the search the rail yard boxcar by boxcar.

Stanton had insisted that she accompany the strike team because after two days of Koski's attentions, the hoped-for rescuees would probably need a field medic, if not a psychologist.

"If Dr. Koski's interrogation railway cars are in Eugene, I guarantee he is here because of those two. He would relish having the opportunity to interrogate New York's two top agents. He would think it a rare challenge. And it was definitely he who took Mr. Edgars. If he hasn't yet killed him, Mr. Edgars will be there, too."

"Green and orange, Florida Pacific. We'll get to looking."

"Be careful. He will not hesitate to kill them if he feels the need."

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

"Oh shit!"

Napoleon lifted his head and tried to focus his eyes. The two flunkies holding him up tightened their grip on his arms, but their prisoner was barely able to stand, let alone escape.

Noise and the jostling of bodies followed. Napoleon thought it was odd. He didn't feel like he was being moved around at all.

"You incompetent! Get him out of there and clean that up!" Anger. Solo couldn't follow everything that was being said, but even his drug-fogged brain detected the emotional content just as a dog understood its master's meaning without understanding the words.

Koski. It was Koski who was doing most of the yelling. It gradually dawned Napoleon that he was, for once, not the center of Koski's attention.

He squinted and his vision cleared a bit. He and the the two guards holding him faced the row of three cell doors at the end of Koski's lab. Two men in white lab coats over Thrush overalls dragged a man out of the door on the left. It was Edgars. Even from two yards away Solo could smell the reek of urine and vomit on his tie, shirt and pants. He cringed while the man was tossed into the center cell, the one that Napoleon had been in. In a disjointed thought he wondered why they had left Edgars his tie. Koski had taken away his own tie, belt, shoes and socks, leaving him in his shirt sleeves and trousers.

The two minions shut the door behind Edgars and went to the door on the right.

_What's behind door number three?_

They brought out another man. Blond hair, no shirt, skinny body. Illya. The other agent suddenly sagged and fell forward almost into Napoleon and his own guard. Solo had a brief impression of Illya's mussed blond head colliding with his chin and nose. There was the strong smell of sweat, not his own, and the feeling of something being pressed into his hand. Solo's fingers automatically closed over it, the two were pulled apart and he was roughly shoved into the cell that Illya had just come out of.

"What are you dolts doing? Close that door!" It was Koski yelling again. The door whispered shut and Napoleon was surrounded by silence.

He lay there for a short time, listening to himself breathe. The effects of Koski's experiments wore thinner and thinner with each inhale-exhale. Napoleon wouldn't have called his sessions with Koski an interrogation. More a like a physical examination. . . by the Marquis DeSade.

Slowly, he lifted himself up from the floor to lean on the bunk. This cell was exactly the same as his own. He wouldn't have known the difference had he not seen the door in the lab. He brought his arm up onto the bunk and uncurled his fingers like a gasping diver looking at a pilfered pearl. He saw a button.

It rolled out of his palm and fell flat onto the firm, gray bunk. Napoleon stared at it. His mind had immediately clicked on what it was; the men's explosive buttons that U.N.C.L.E. dispensed only came in one style and color-black, like Model Ts. But what good was the explosive without the detonator?

Then he remembered that he was wearing Illya's shirt. He felt along the buttons on the front of his-Illya's-sweat-stained shirt and found one with a slight indentation on its underside. Solo looked about for cover. Of course, there was none in the spartan cell, except for the bunk which was all one piece, permanently fixed to the wall.

_Well, prisoners can't be choosers._

Napoleon twisted the detonator button around and around until it came off activating its chemical fuse with a barely audible fissling sound. He pressed the small, pearly white detonator to the explosive button and swiftly placed them, face down, under the bunk in the corner of the cell.

He then huddled on top of the bunk on the end closest to the door and farthest from his bomb. He felt the explosion in every portion of his body, the sound and feel of it going right through his hands clasped over his ears. Being so close to an explosion was pretty stupid and dangerous. The only thing more dangerous that Napoleon could think of at the moment was going back into Koski's lab.

Ears ringing, coughing from the fumes, he climbed off the bunk. The fact that the bunk was still in place was a bad sign. But when he looked, fanning at the lingering smoke with his hands, he saw the floor under the bunk bent downward. He took his shirt off, wadded it up over his hand and pressed on it. It gave.

Solo glanced back at the door, but he could hear no hint that anyone on other side was aware of what he was up to. He'd assumed Koski's cells were sound-proofed since he'd done plenty of screaming during his sessions with the Thrush and heard not a sound while confined to his own cubicle.

Leaving the wadded up shirt in place, he tried pushing on it with his feet. Then, contorting himself entirely under the bunk, he pushed with every bit of his remaining energy.

The metal under him groaned and gave and his feet suddenly slid out under him. Solo just barely managed to keep from falling into the dark hole under him. Cool, night air filled his nostrils. He quickly climbed through the hole, barely noticing the sharp shards of still-hot metal surrounding it.

Once outside he ducked under the heavy metal structure under the cell and looked around. It was dark, but the gravelly ground he could see on two sides of him was lit from above. Outdoor lighting. In the other two directions, he saw two parallel tracks. He looked down and felt the ground under him. A heavy slab of wood, then rocks, then another slab of wood . . . railroad tracks. Napoleon's astonishment that he'd been imprisoned on a train was cut short by a man's yell.

"I don't see anything over here!"

"Well, check again!" This was followed by some audible grumbling and a pair feet crunching by on the gravel. The man didn't even know what was happening to him as Napoleon grabbed his legs and pulled him to the ground, banged his head against the metal rail then dragged the body under with him. He quickly searched the man and found a pistol and a switchblade. The knife was definitely not standard Thrush issue, but super-secret meglomaniac criminal organizations couldn't be too discriminating about who they hired, Napoleon supposed.

He pocketed the knife and, taking the gun, started to re-enter his own cell when he realized that the section of flooring that he'd blown apart also extended to the next cell.

Edgars was in there, crouched on his bunk. He stared down uncomprehendingly at his rescurer. He was now completely naked. Apparently Koski's guards had just stripped him and wiped the filth off him. He still smelled like a latrine.

The unconscious Thrush under the train lost his coveralls along with his weaponry.

Dressed in the Thrush's uniform and still incoherently baffled, Edgars edged toward the hole in the floor with a little encouragement from the New York agent. It would be a potentially fatal liability to have such an incapacitated companion along for an escape, but Napoleon would not leave him behind to continue to be Koski's guinea pig.

The door slid open.

"All right, here's your bath - - -"

Napoleon shot him point blank. The hapless Thrush's body exploded outward from the door with with a spray of blood from the chest. Solo managed to nail two more before the others took cover. Solo picked up one of the shoes belonging to the Thrush under the train-they had fit neither him nor Edgars-and tossed it out into the hallway. A volley of gunfire send it spinning to the right.

Solo dove out, fired to his left. Now it was four down.

Crouching low by the wall, he saw a door at the far end of the laboratory close. He ran down the length of the boxcar, but the door was locked from the other side. He stood, hesitated for an instant, then decided to get them all out if he could. He hurried to the examination tables.

"Illya!" Solo unstrapped his partner one-handed while still scanning the room for any live fowl. "Can you understand me? Did he give you any drugs?" Napoleon asked as Illya unstrapped his legs.

"No." The Russian rubbed at a neat line of red marks on his shoulder before sliding off the table. "He hadn't gotten around to it."

They returned to Edgars's cell and crawled out the hole in the floor with Edgars getting some forceful encouragement. Once under the train they heard shouting.

"We seem to have stirred up the nest," Illya commented, shivering. Th night air was cold on his bare back. A spot of light appeared at the far end of the car they were under. Napoleon tugged Illya's arm toward the side of the car facing away from the light and all three of them crept away from it. They all moved with the adrenaline of the escape, even Edgars needed little prompting to go with them now.

Napoleon emerged cautiously. That side of the train was completely uncovered. The Thrush had placed all their resources around the car's only known door. It didn't seem to have occurred to them that Napoleon might have made his own exit. The three sprinted to a row of warehouses and into the shadows between them. Putting as much distance as they could between them and Koski they almost ran over the hobo before they knew he was there.

Illya, keyed up by their escape, thought he saw the man reach for a weapon and KO'd him with a vicious elbow jab to the throat.

"You'll give us a bad reputation," Napoleon noted over the unconscious body.

Illya crouched over the body and picked up a gun. He showed it to Napoleon.

"Birds of a feather," Solo noted, shrugging. Illya pocketed the gun, then began removing the man's long shabby overcoat and black shirt. He quickly pulled on the shirt and handed the overcoat to Napoleon.

Napoleon pulled on the disgusting garment.

Behind them, they heard the search perimeter expanding. With Edgars between them, they ran again. They found no salvation when they reached the edge of the warehouses. No roads, no traffic, no police cars, no U.N.C.L.E. cavalry.

They could see only a black field ahead of them with a few scattered white lights far in the distance. And the area behind them was far too well lit for safety. The sounds and shouts of pursuit behind them grew louder. Even armed as they were with two pistols and a knife, their chances of surviving a shoot-out were poor.

They dashed across the well lit space between light and dark and plunged across uneven ground covered with tall weeds and grasses. Edgars stumbled several times, but they dragged him along between them. Thankfully he didn't cry out or make any noise at the rough treatment.

Suddenly, the ground fell away from Napoleon's feet. He fell forward into a vicious tangle of brambles. Still clutching the pistol, he tried to protect his face. Tiny thorns snagged and scratched at his arms and legs and and hair as he tumbled down a steep incline into the middle of the sticker plants. Nearby, he heard Illya and Edgars suffer the same fate. There was a brief exclamation from his partner, but Edgars still didn't utter a sound. They came to rest where the ground began to level off. In near-total darkness, Solo tried pulling away the attacking plants surrounding him, but any little movement seemed to attract more clinging lengths of sticker vines.

"Shhhh!" Illya's hiss warned him. With thorns still clinging to his hair, pricking his neck, arms, back, and legs, Napoleon froze. The Thrush search parties had reached the edge of the warehouse and the escapees heard a series of shouts issuing directions. They were in a completely dark, unlit field, out of sight of the warehouses, but if the foliage they'd become ensnared in wasn't thick enough, a single flashlight beam would find them stuck there like flys on flypaper.

With thorns stabbing them from all sides, they waited.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( END Act 4**


	5. Chapter 5

**THE BLACK TUESDAY AFFAIR**

by ardavenport and tlneill

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)(o)( Act 5 : "It doesn't smell right."**

* * *

Jorgenson woke up with a pounding headache that seemed to extend to his body. He started to sit up, then froze. There was a train moving above him! He snatched his hand back from where the metal wheels passed inches from his fingers.

_What the-?_

The last thing he remembered was hearing what sounded like an explosion and then being KO'd by some guy who dropped out of nowhere.

How long had he lain there unconscious? He was stiff with cold.

He realized with a start that he was wearing only his boxer shorts, undershirt and socks.

He hugged the ground until the train passed by, then he hastily rolled off the roadbed, wincing as the sharp gravel dug into his bare arms and legs. He searched for his gun and found only his flashlight where he'd dropped it when he'd been attacked. He shook his head again, trying to make the pounding stop, then ran for help.

The rail yard seemed to be full of moving figures. Friends or foes? He realized he didn't want to blunder, stripped down and unarmed, into a Thrush ambush. He headed back toward where he remembered the stationmaster's office was.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Sniff, sniff.

Napoleon winced and squinted up at the gray sky. Grass, cool air, smoke; it smelled like he was camping out. It was morning it seemed.. He moved and turned his head with the crackle of dry brambles under him. A line of prickly thorns scored his hands and the side of his neck.

"Ow!" Napoleon tried to brush the brambles aside only to have more of them cling to his clothes, sharp, needle-like thorns threatening to poke through the cloth to the bruised and sore skin underneath. Solo stopped moving. Slowly, carefully he began plucking the dry, tenacious vines away from him. He couldn't get them all; he was sitting right in the middle of a thicket of them. But he could pull away the worst offenders. The slow, tedious job was made more difficult by the remains of the drug and the torture his body had received on Koski's lab table. But the simple, innocent pain of sitting in a sticker bush was almost a relief when compared to the sadistic torture he had escaped from. The stickers were not after him; they were just doing their job.

Finally he freed himself enough to sit up. Solo could feel fresh scratches breaking open all over his arms, legs and back as he moved. He remembered them all falling into the stickers the previous night, in almost total darkness. Now how were they going to get out?

Something moaned at his feet. Napoleon looked down to see a man's body curled up by his knees. From the hair it must have been Edgars, who moaned again. Solo turned his head to find Illya, perfectly motionless in the brambles and watching him with grave blue eyes. He carefully reached out a much scratched hand and picked a dark berry from a cluster in front of him and ate it. There were many clusters among the stickers, Napoleon realized, ranging in colors from green to pink to red to black.

"Blackberries," the Russian told him.

Napoleon was a city boy. Blackberries were found in their natural habitat, the grocery store, in little baskets, not in evil briar patches. But his head hurt, he was thirsty and sore and bleeding. Solo didn't feel like arguing the point. He looked around them again, hoping to see a way out. If Thrush were still around looking for them, they would have been found long ago. Through the tangle of leaves, stickers and berries, he distant buildings of the rail yard lay in one direction. Napoleon was surprised by how far away they were. How far had they stumbled through the blackberry thicket before stopping here? In the other direction appeared to be a clearing, and possibly a dirt road.

"Strange weather we're having here," Solo noted. The sky was unnaturally gray and dark. The smell of smoke intensified, but there was no sound or sight or heat of fire anywhere near them.

With his partner's help he prodded Edgars into a sitting position. "City on fire," Edgars mumbled after taking a few deep breaths.

Napoleon sniffed. "I hope not."

Illya tested the air. "No. It doesn't smell right," he answered quietly. Illya's eyes stared into the haze in the distance and Solo wondered how he could be so certain. But then, how much of Russia had been burned by the Germans and where had Illya been during and immediately after World War II? Napoleon didn't ask any questions. Illya wasn't obliged to answer any. The Russian silently went on eating the unwashed blackberries.

Solo lowered his head and pulled the old overcoat up over it. On his hands and knees, he crept toward the clearing, going away from the rail yard. Illya followed close behind with Edgars.

Solo finally reached the edge of the blackberry patch and crawled out onto a dirt road. He plucked away the last clinging vines and stood up. The he abruptly sat down on the packed earth. It was either that or fall down from the dizziness.

After a few moments, Illya, shepherding Edgars, emerged. Solo wondered if it had been Edgars or eating the blackberries that had slowed him down. Solo's stomach cringed at the thought; Koski had left him with no appetite and little strength.

A noise almost caused Solo to dive back into the berry thorns. A young woman stood a few yards down the road looking at them. Her hair was long, her jeans were bell-bottomed, her headband was hand woven. Everything about her from her granny glasses to her sandals screamed 'hippy'. She carried a basket brimming with fresh blackberries.

"Wow. Far out," she uttered with a tone of awe that could only come from the very innocent or the the very stoned.

"Um, uh," Napoloeon started. Without any conscious thought, he automatically tried to tidy up his hair. "Hello. Uh, we seem to have gotten lost."

"Wow," she uttered again. More hippies-equally laden with blackberries-emerged from the thickets. They stared at the three dirty, scratched, ragged men sitting in the road.

Napoleon became aware of how disheveled they were, how bad Edgars smelled, but the hippies didn't seem to notice.

"Hi, I'm Cori," the girl with the headband said. "This is Bet and Dwain. And that's Zin. Are you hobos from the rail yard over there?"

"Hey, Cori, don't hassle the dudes," Dwain cut in. "You guys need a place to crash or something to eat?"

Napoleon nodded, then introduced himself and his companions.

He discovered that the young people were right out of Haight-Ashbury, literally. They'd come up to Oregon for some 'real nature' because their old digs in the bay area had become 'too establishment'. They were mildly impressed by Napoleon's uncommon name. They were majorly impressed (especially Dwain) by Illya's obviously foreign origins. And to Edgars, they were all sympathy and assistance. They immediately evaluated him as the victim of a bad trip and neither of the other U.N.C.L.E. agents corrected them. Technically, they were all 'coming down' from an exceptionally bad trip.

Bet, Dwain, Zin and Cori led them back to their van. Solo and Kuryakin paused for a moment to stare while Dwain and Zin helped Edgars into it. It was real, live, VW bus. It was old and spray painted with fading green peace signs.

Once in it, they found that the seats were hard and uncomfortable and when Bet started the engine of her chariot (as she called it) they could barely hear each other talk, which gave Illya perfect cover for avoiding Dwain's inquiries about communes. After a short bumpy ride, they arrived at a broken down and grayish brown house.

"Welcome to Dragon's Tryst."

"Dragon's Tryst?" Illya asked.

From over in the rail yard the could hear the screeching of rail cars coupling. Zin laughed and waved at the sound. "Yeah, man. Tryst-ing dragons."

Napoleon had to admit to the creative accuracy of the name. Overhead the sky continued to blacken. The smell of smoke increased.

Illya stared up at the sky.

"Oh, it's just a grass fire," Cori explained once they'd gotten out of the van.

"A grass fire?" Illya repeated, mildly alarmed.

Illya passed the baskets of blackberries out to Bet and Zin, who were going to turn them into home made wine.

"It's really bad, today," Dwain said as he brushed back his long blond hair back away from the Indian beads around his neck. Why was the grass burning? None of the hippies seemed to know; but it was a common occurrence.

"Have you called the fire department?" Illya felt as if he was having some sort of psychedelic dream. His mind was muzzy and his body felt clumsy and disconnected from his brain.

"We don't want anything to do with the Establishment. Besides, man, we don't have a phone."

Illya was too exhausted to worry any more about it.

The hippies led Edgars into a dark and low-ceilinged living room filled with old furniture and a fish tank. Cori produced an old cigar box with a grungy ace bandage, needle and thread, several band-aids, some stray cotton balls, two small pebbles and a tube of suntan lotion. It wasn't much of a first-aid kit, but the old rags and basin of water that Bet brought in from the kitchen helped.

Their benefactors turned out to come from true middle-class backgrounds and none of them knew a thing about first aid. Solo and Kuryakin did the work while their hosts marveled at their survival skills.

"Hey, way out, man. Do you want some, like, anesthesia?" Cori held out a crudely rolled 'cigarette'.

"Um, er, I don't smoke." Napoleon reflexively pulled away from it.

"Oh, into the harder stuff, eh? Got any? We planned to take some of the berries out to the highway and try to peddle them for some money to buy some acid but Bet wanted to make wine and that's cool, too."

"Mmmm, no. Sorry."

"No big deal, man. You mind if I smoke?"

Napoleon glanced over at Edgars who was sitting slackly staring into the fish tank while Illya dug thorns out of his arms. "I, um, think my friend has, er, already had too much. Any more might not be good for him."

"Yeah man, good point. We'll go into the other room and close the door."

They were left alone at last.

Napoleon relaxed in his chair. Illya did the same on the couch. It was really terrible furniture. Illya could easily imagine it having been tossed out by more discriminating owners and picked up by their hosts who were now enjoying a good toke in the bedroom. The upholstery was torn and worn smooth in places. The seats were lumpy and the original color might have been blue but was now almost gray with use. But it didn't have any electrodes, steel plates or stickers in it and that was just fine.

Illya and Edgars, who seemed perfectly happy sitting in a dilapidated lawn chair, gazing at the fish slowing swimming around and around in their aquarium. Illya pondered the therapeutic effects of fish on stressed-out U.N.C.L.E. agents.

Napoleon and he and even Edgars were coming down from their 'high' of drugs, action and excitement. Illya caught himself dozing off.

_Wait! _

It was still too soon to rest. They hadn't reached safety yet. He tried to focus his thoughts on what they needed to do next. Carefully, he sat up and glanced at his partner.

Napoleon was frozen in his chair, his eyes staring wide ahead of him. Kuryakin quickly looked in the direction of the stare and didn't see anything. No Thrush guards closing in to take them back to Koski's chamber of horrors. Just the thickening haze over the fields outside the kitchen window. He could hardly see across the road in the smoky twilight anymore.

Thinking that Koski had imparted some delayed horror on his friend he inquired softly, "Napoleon?"

Slowly, Solo lowered his eyes and pulled his right hand out of one of the pockets of the coat they had taken from the old hobo in the yard. He held up a gleaming, silver U.N.C.L.E. communicator.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Tanja Stanton and JJ McKenzie met Solo and Kuryakin at Sacred Heart Hospital and drove them to the Quackenbush Hotel in downtown Eugene the next morning.

After their rescue, they had been admitted to the hospital overnight for tests and observation, and then released. Ben Edgars would be an inpatient, here or at a psychiatric hospital, for a long time.

The sky was still hazy with smoke. Napoleon spotted a stack of newspapers in the hotel gift shop. He gave the cashier a dime and picked one up while Illya and Stanton handled checking in.

He glanced at the date. Wednesday, August 13, 1969. Wednesday. Was it really Wednesday?

The days had blurred together. Two days. Had they been Koski's prisoners only two days? He'd hate to spend _more_ time in Koski's clutches.

After they checked in, Illya insisted they stop at the hotel restaurant for a second breakfast. The idea of food still turned Napoleon's stomach. He ordered black coffee, then reconsidered and ordered milk. He noticed a frown on Dr. Stanton's face and added toast to his order.

"So you never located Koski?" Illya asked.

JJ shook his head. "No, we searched all day yesterday, but somehow they slipped past us. I can't see how three whole boxcars could get past us like that. We know they'd been repainted before they got back to Eugene but the rail officials swear they've accounted for every boxcar that left Eugene since Sunday night. It's as if those boxcars sprouted wings."

Napoleon opened the newspaper he had bought. He was too tired, too bruised to want to discuss the details of U.N.C.L.E.'s unsuccessful search. The headline read "McCall Asks Tougher Burning Rules." The article went on to say. "Gov. Tom McCall has called for a seven day ban on field burning and ordered the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission to meet in Eugene this evening. . . ." There was a hazy picture with the caption "Smoke blankets Interstate 5".

_The grass fires had been set on purpose?_

He read on, discovering that the local farmers grew fescue and other grasses to sell their seeds, then burned the stubble fields. Someone had goofed and issued too many burning permits for the same day. The entire area had been disrupted. Commercial flights had been forced to make instrument landings at the local airport. They were already calling it "Black Tuesday."

Black Tuesday. No way. That Tuesday dawn, spent in freedom in a blackberry patch, was one of the brightest Napoleon could remember.

* * *

**)(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)( )(o)(o)(o)(**

* * *

Amidst a clearing of trees, in an abandoned railway siding that had been passed over by two U.N.C.L.E. search teams, a man in gray coveralls furtively crept behind a row of apparently disused aluminum shacks. He carried a newspaper. After looking this way and that and after observing the necessary security rituals, he was admitted. When he was gone, there was no evidence that he had ever been there or that there was anyone inside to take him in.

Within the weathered aluminum shacks were Koski's railway cars. They were equipped with their own engines, derailing equipment, and camouflage. The man, a youngish Thrush, was escorted to the main car where Raymond Koski's office/living quarters were. The interrogator took the newspaper and listened to the minion's report. U.N.C.L.E. was still looking for them, but there was no evidence that they had any clue to where the Thrush lay hiding. After a few more days waiting they could slip away.

Koski eyed the nervous young man. This one was a bit more reliable than the others; he had performed his tasks adequately. He was trainable. Koski dismissed him. The others, however, would be disposed of, made examples of. Alone in his living room, Koski pondered his situation. Failures did not sit well with Central. But Koski had already been assured by his own sources that Central would not take any actions against him . . . for now, if there were no more failures. There would not be.

Koski sat down in a chair and opened the newspaper. Field burning? Was that what had filled the whole area with smoke the day before, giving cover to his subjects/escapees? Not that they had been able to mount any kind of search in a rail yard that had suddenly come alive with U.N.C.L.E. agents. Their only option had been to retreat.

Since the escape, Koski had analyzed the mistakes, the weaknesses in his methods. It had been a bitter mistake to even attempt this kind of operation with such poorly trained staff. Solo and Kuryakin had been fresh from the field and obviously carrying explosives with which they'd made their escape. All of Koski's subjects were routinely held for more than a month and thoroughly searched and stripped. This was the first operation where Koski had been in charge of such menial details, and his assistants had clearly been too stupid to do their jobs. He sipped a cup of coffee that he'd set on the table next to his chair as he flipped through the articles about the Oregon governor coming to view the smoky haze over Eugene. Apparently the field burning had been an issue in the area for some time.

Having absorbed enough petty local news, Koski tossed aside the paper, his mind once again returning to his future plans. They would go to a secluded spot in the Rocky Mountains where they would eliminate the deadwood that Thrush had given him. Koski intended that two of those incompetent "lab assistants" would take Edgar's place in his experiments. Then they would be replaced with decently trained personnel.

There would be no more escapes when he was ready.

* * *

******)(o)(o)(o)(** END

* * *

**Note:** This story, by authors A.R. Davenport and T. L Neill (with help from J. M. D'Agostino-Toney), was first published in the print fanzine, 'Can You Get Channel D in the Back of a '67 Chevy' , in May 1994.

**Disclaimer: **All characters and the U.N.C.L.E. universe belong to Arena Productions and MGM Television. I am just playing in their sandbox.


End file.
